River inside the river : three lyric sequences /
Orr, Gregory.
"Poems"--Jacket cover.
To Speak --  To See -- To Write -- To Name -- The Parade -- To Noun -- To Verb -- Eve -- To Do -- To Feel -- To Long -- To No/To Know -- To Say -- To Choose -- To Smell -- To Fuck -- To Come -- To Embrace -- To Go -- To Stray -- To Leave -- To Squint -- Departure -- To Weep -- To Notice -- To Journey -- Still -- To Hope -- When -- Close -- To Love -- To Understand -- To Say/To Save -- Sometimes -- Now -- To Build -- The City of Poetry -- It would have erased everything human  --  Some say Adam and Eve  --  Bored in grade school  --  I killed my younger brother  --  Eighteen and a volunteer  -- Who needs plaques --  A thousand roads lead to it ... Until I heard Neruda read  -- Tang of salt in the walls  -- You're invited to visit  -- From the outside, these row houses --  So many brought here by water --  There's only one river -- Love overwhelms us -- It's not all spun sugar and gossamer --  Consider Francois Villon -- Coleridge was only a little stoned -- From a distance -- Not everyone in the city --  In the middle of my life -- Sometimes, the river -- White flag -- "0, thou opening 0 ... "  -- Some as ephemeral --  Whenever its enemies besiege it ... Neglected for decades Sometimes, entering -- That poem I call -- I sat on the bank of a pond -- The life I live -- As I say aloud the opening line -- River Inside the River -- As an anthologist might gather -- The Book said we were mortal -- Knowing life grinds us -- Like fireflies hovering -- Each of us standing at a particular -- Yearning for permanence, and who wouldn't? -- Bald, high-domed Taoist sage -- Most poems  -- "Why not a brief respite?" -- Note to self: remember -- Not to lead us away  -- Cat curled asleep -- That surplus  -- 100 -- No tome so obscure -- Today a letter arrived -- So many to choose from -- I know now the beloved  -- Memorize those lines you love -- When the coffin closed at last  -- Set beside the world's -- Hardening the heart -- Sorrow is good --  First, there was shatter -- That song on the jukebox -- Intimacy not yet -- The beloved came -- Lucky poets us -- Lead of the heart -- He was hidden, then -- Dancing to her song -- The old philosopher, dying -- Doesn't the world demand -- If you believe Shakespeare's -- Sun-drenched, late -- Time is a wound that can't  -- River inside the river
Poetry.